Jill Abramson and Dean Baquet: Why a White Woman and a Black Man Will Lead the USA's Top Paper: When I heard the historic announcement from Times Square the other day, that America's top newspaper had named a woman as executive editor, my thoughts drifted back to the 1972-1981 decade at the paper, and the words of Dickens -- almost cliche nowadays -- seemed apt: 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.'The New York Times, where I spent most of my career, appointed Jill Abramson to lead the newsroom. Her No. 2 will be Dean Baquet, named managing editor. It will be the first time the two top positions at the 160-year-old newspaper have been filled by a woman and a black man. That is a groundbreaking team.
The monumental change deserves more attention than the relatively subdued reaction it received. It also deserves more background and history, coming nearly three decades after women and minorities settled separate discrimination lawsuits against the paper. To my mind, the promotions represented the culmination of that legal action.
